Chandimal to lead SL in Tests, Tharanga in shorter formats

Dinesh Chandimal has been named Sri Lanka’s new Test captain, after Angelo Mathews stepped down from the role in all formats on Tuesday. Upul Tharanga will take over in ODIs and T20s.Chandimal had served as Mathews’ deputy and led the T20 team in the past, while Tharanga led the ODI team when Mathews had been injured.Speaking at the press conference to announce the new captains, Mathews, who quit following the 3-2 ODI defeat at home to Zimbabwe, said: “Yes, there have been significant poor performances, and I’m humble enough to accept it. In the past also there were instances where I wanted to step down but I didn’t want to let the team down at that time, mainly because there were no replacements. The team’s interests supercede my personal interests.”There were two things working in my mind. The first is whether this was the right time considering the team. My honest opinion is that there are candidates who can take over the reins. I’m pretty sure that they will be more successful and better captains than me. I also wanted to give my successor enough time until the World Cup, to build up a team. Those were the main reasons for me to step down.”Mathews said that although he was disappointed with Sri Lanka’s results in 2017, he resigns having given his best to the job.”I have at all times played in the exclusive interest of Sri Lankan cricket, and have not at any time compromised my national duties for any personal gain,” he said, reading a portion of his letter of resignation to the board. “I have at all times given utmost priority to making myself available over any franchise commitment, and have at times pre-terminated franchise commitments in order to fulfill national obligations. Subject to me being selected for national duty, I would ensure my fullest commitment to the national cricket team. Moreover, I would at all times support and guide our profusely talented young team, as well as my successor, in every way.”Chandimal was always a top contender to take over from Mathews, particularly because he had been groomed as a leader in the past. Though Chandimal’s patchy form in ODIs led to his exclusion from the recent squad to play Zimbabwe, he has matured as a Test batsman – most recently making a difficult ton against Bangladesh at the P Sara Oval. He averages 41.17 since the start of 2015, and has scored 2540 runs at an average of 42.33 all told. Chandimal had also been a successful captain at school level, leading Ananda College to record number of outright victories in his senior year.”I want to take this team and Sri Lanka forward, so I will put my heart and soul into the job,” Chandimal said after the announcement. “I’m very thankful to the job that Angie [Mathews] has done for us. Captaincy is not an easy job and he was an excellent leader for us over four-and-a-half years. He’s also a terrific batsman and a match-winner for us, and I have huge hopes that he will continue to be one in the coming years as well.”Tharanga’s rise to the limited-overs captaincy has been sharper. He had been dropped from Sri Lanka’s limited-overs sides as recently as the first half of 2016, but has since led the team in 14 ODIs, as acting captain in Mathews’ absence. He has been in excellent form in recent months, however, averaging 49 in ODIs since November. He has been moved around the batting order during that time, sometimes opening the batting, and batting in the middle order at others. Sri Lanka have won four and lost eight of the ODIs Tharanga has captained – six of those losses coming against South Africa.Tharanga also thanked Mathews for his leadership, and the selectors for giving him the opportunity to lead. He acknowledged that Sri Lanka’s recent performances had been modest.”I don’t want to say that as a team we’ve done poorly in the recent past, but we have had some ups and downs,” Tharanga said. “Some matches we do well, and others we don’t. In future we have to be more consistent. We all want to take Sri Lanka forward.”

'Twenty more minutes and we would have gone through' – Muralitharan

The city where they were crowned IPL champions last year was the same city which wrecked their hopes this year. Sunrisers Hyderabad arrived in Bangalore late last month and saw a potential win against a struggling host slip away because of rain. Now, in the Eliminator, they were 20 minutes away from having a shot at Qualifier 2 and perhaps even defending their crown as it rained for a better part of three hours immediately after they posted 128, numbers-wise a sub-par score at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. But then it stopped, making way for a six-over chase in which Kolkata Knight Riders had to get 48.To not get there, Knight Riders needed a serious meltdown, and they almost had one when they lost three wickets in the first seven deliveries, but the advantage of a truncated game always favours the chasing team. Gautam Gambhir demonstrated as much with his unbeaten 19-ball 32, which helped Knight Riders home with four balls to spare. Muttiah Muralitharan, Sunrisers’ bowling coach, said it was his team’s “destiny” to not progress.Asked if prior playing experience on this surface, which they were denied because of rain during the league phase, might have helped approach their batting better this time around, Muralitharan said with a laugh: “Had we played and won [against RCB], we would have been in Mumbai [for Qualifier 1]. It’s destiny. Twenty more minutes and we would have gone through. It’s all about destiny. It’s part and parcel of the game.”Muralitharan isn’t a stranger at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, having spent two seasons with Royal Challengers Bangalore. But he may have well been mistaken into believing it was his first time here, upon looking at the 22 yards for this game. The ground where Royal Challengers nearly chased down 209 to beat Sunrisers in the final last year was now throwing up vastly different conditions. The reasons attributed to the sudden change in the nature of the square are many.A change in composition of the soil and a reduction in thickness of clay to aid bounce hasn’t worked because of the dry heat, according to the ground’s curator. This has also caused the tracks to break down faster because of cracks opening up. Unlike last year, where five totals of 200 or more were scored, the average first-innings score here this season was 148, something Sunrisers were targeting upon being put in to bat.Muttiah Muralitharan: ‘The batsmen played well, the bowlers who we picked at the auction did well. Overall we are satisfied with the performance’•AFP

Knight Riders’ Nathan Coulter-Nile kept bowling cross-seam and got the ball to stop on the batsmen. Manufacturing strokes was hard as David Warner and Kane Williamson found out. It was only when the bowlers pitched short did they have any leeway. Despite having seven wickets in hand, Sunrisers could only manage 30 off their last five.”The wicket was not great to play shots, we would’ve been bowled out for 70-80 if we tried to play shots,” Muralitharan said. “We were thinking of 140 and finished 10 short because they bowled well. We had the bowling to defend it across 20 overs. Had we taken two or three wickets early, they would have struggled. We’ve seen how teams have defended 130-135 here. It’s unfortunate. They won the toss and so they deserved to win.”Muralitharan chose not to focus on the playing conditions. A regulation cut-off time for this match – the cut-off time for play to begin in the playoffs is one hour more than the cut-off time for the league-phase games – would have meant Sunrisers would have qualified. Asked whether a reserve day, instead, would have been the way to go, he laughed it off.”We all prefer 20 overs. We didn’t expect it to rain. Anyone can win or lose, but we had a great season,” he said. “The batsmen played well, the bowlers who we picked at the auction did well. Overall we are satisfied with the performance – eight wins and five losses before this. It doesn’t always go your way.”We are all disappointed not getting through, but we had some great performances. Unfortunately you can’t win every time. We made sure we gave our best and our best was not good enough. We have to take it on the chin. Let’s see, hopefully if we can get the same team next year – I don’t know what the rules are going to be – we can once again try and win.”

Helm enhances reputation with five-for in win

ScorecardTom Helm’s 5 for 33 was the fifth five-for in Lions history•ECB

Tom Helm had expressed modest ambitions for his first England Lions tour. “One of my main aims was to leave the tour in one piece,” he said. A young fast bowler can soon become philosophical when his early career is strewn with stress fractures and injury mishaps in the field. But he has not merely survived, he has finished with his reputation enhanced.With Helm to the fore, England Lions again chose the colonial-style backdrop of Colombo Cricket Club to salvage respectability from their lost one-day series in Sri Lanka. A second win in 48 hours cut the margin of defeat to 3-2 and, after the batting exploits of Daniel Bell-Drummond and Tom Alsop on Thursday, came the fast-bowling promise of Helm, who returned the second-best figures in Lions history.Finally, records are available for nearly 30 years of Lions cricket in all its guises ­ – the ECB deserves credit for that ­ – and they reveal that Helm’s 5 for 33 was only the fifth five-wicket haul in Lions history, surpassed only by Tom Curran’s 5 for 16 against UAE in Dubai before Christmas. Curran was pulled out of the one-day leg of the Sri Lanka tour to join England’s senior squad in the West Indies; Helm did enough to encourage hopes that one day he may follow.Even before this display, Helm felt like one of the successes of the tours, only without the stand-out performance to amplify the thought. His director of cricket at Middlesex, Gus Fraser, was on hand when he was limited to two wickets in a four-day affair in Kandy, although they were good ones as he made both balls bounce to leave Fraser nodding with appreciation. He found ways to concern batsmen on Sri Lankan pitches, was unafraid to vary his approach and was forewarned of the challenges ahead by England age-group experience in India earlier in his career.A Lions tour had not been on his mind after a season in which he made only four appearances in all competitions. He was pleased enough to be called up to a fast bowling camp, but he quickly impressed and with England’s youthful pace resources not exactly limitless his promotion quickly followed.Strangely, he looks more powerful on the pitch than off it, which might say something about a strong, repeatable action as well as a mild disposition. England might still want him to bulk up a little, especially considering an injury record that he will hope is now behind him. His parents have watched him throughout the tour and have even been able to draw pleasure from the first six of his List A career.Helm will now go to Dubai for a Middlesex pre-season tour (Fraser having abandoned the practice tent at Radlett in deference to last year’s Championship win) and for the Champion County match against the MCC.”I couldn’t be happier with how the winter’s turned out,” Helm said. “It’s not really how I expected it to go. It’s a lovely place to come, but tough as a seamer. I bowled a lot of balls that should have been hit to the fence, and they ended up hitting them to fielders. I felt like other days I’ve bowled better but they’ve hit good balls to the fence.”As the Lions’ tour of Sri Lanka drew to a halt, the other match in Colombo 7 was still attracting more attention. Down the road at Sinhalese Sports Club, the 138th Battle of the Blues was heading for another inevitable draw, or at least deemed that way by a convivial Bar-Propper, with a grand beard and even grander feathered hat who marked the start of play at Colombo Cricket Club with his first hard liquor of the day.”I might go down there later,” he said, signalling down Maitland Place, where the unerring responsibility shown by the young players of Royal and St Thomas Colleges were being watched ­ – or half-watched – by a crowd of 10,000, “but I tend to get stuck here.” There are worst places to linger than the members’ bar at CCC, but when Sri Lanka A crumbled to 82 for 6 by the 21st over, he rose from his seat to find consolation in Sri Lanka’s most historic schools contest.Helm had begun that decline in his first over with two wickets in successive balls, grateful when Ron Chandraguptha slapped one to cover and bowling Sadeera Samarawickrama first ball. Two wicket-keeper catches accounted in later spells for Angelo Perera and Dasun Shanaka, before he returned for a final time to end a vexing last-wicket stand of 52 with a leg-stump yorker to remove the imposing Ramith Rambukwella.”I’m glad I got him out first ball because I was cramping,” Helm said. “It would have been a long over otherwise.”Helm’s incursions had been followed by another unyielding spell of off spin by Liam Livingstone, 2 for 27 this time as his reliability drew self-destructive moments from Charith Asalanka and Ashan Priyanjan, whose slog sweep down straight midwicket’s throat was a curious shot from a captain at that stage of the contest.Livingstone has not bowled offspin for long, but you would not credit it. He began the tour intending to bowl legspin (his more common style) at right-handers and offspin at left-handers, but the left-handers in Sri Lanka’s line-up have kept coming and because he has been in the groove, as series figures of 7 for 144 in 40 overs testify, the legspin has rarely appeared. His promise as an attacking England one-day batsman and sixth bowler is apparent.Name a third player to prosper and Ben Foakes, the neatest of wicketkeepers has obvious Test potential. As for the three Test top-order batsman, Haseeb Hameed (in the four-day series) and Ben Duckett and Keaton Jennings throughout the tour have had a largely frustrating time, although without any sense that the disappointment will be terminal.On the same surface used 48 hours ago, Sri Lanka A were not without hope in defending 192. When the captain, Jennings, holed out at mid-on, so completing his frustrating tour of twenties and thirties, a murder of crows landed malevolently by the England dressing room.At 90 for 4, chasing 193, the Lions were not dead, but they were certainly unwell. The air was dense with the threat of rain and Sri Lankan expectation. But then came the threat of lightning, the players never returned, and Messrs Duckworth and Lewis proved to be a couple of old colonials. Club sandwich anyone?

Bangladesh confront form, selection calls for landmark Test

Match facts

March 15-19, 2017
Start time: 10am local (0430GMT)3:28

Fernando: P Sara Oval the most result-oriented venue in the world

Big picture

The bigshots of the Bangladesh Cricket Board are arriving to much fanfare, soaring rhetoric about South Asian “brotherhood” abounds. Mementos are being polished, showmen are practicing their lines for the presentation: the celebrations for Bangladesh’s 100th Test are all set to go, but after the politically-minded have lavishly slapped each other on the back, there is some cricket to be played as well.It is the plight of Mahmudullah that will have most Bangladesh fans aflutter. He has been dropped from the Test squad but will continue to stay in the country. So will he play in the limited-overs series? Has the board overridden a coaching decision? Has a senior batsman been dealt with too harshly here? Whatever unfolds over the next 48 hours, Mahmudullah will not play, which means Bangladesh will make changes to the batting order that misfired in Galle – bringing in Sabbir Rahman or uncapped 21-year-old Mosaddek Hossain. Imrul Kayes is likely to replace Mominul Haque as well.Bangladesh will need a stronger top order, because they are about to play on perhaps the most reliable result pitch in Test cricket. It has been 11 Tests and almost 14 years since a Test at P Sara Oval was drawn. The seamers generally gain good bounce early in the match, and the spinners run riot late in the game. Generally, there are precious few sessions where batsmen can claim to have had favourable conditions.If Sri Lanka field the same attack, they may pose varied questions to the opposition. Lakshan Sandakan was wayward, but turned the ball viciously at times, while Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera were agents of guile and control. In Lahiru Kumara, Sri Lanka also have a quick who will relish bowling on a track that has a bit of zip.Their own top order, however, is not quite as formidable as a flattering Galle surface made it seem. If Bangladesh are to level the series, here is the weakness they must exploit.

Form guide

Sri Lanka WLLLW (completed matches, most recent first)
Bangladesh LLLLW

In the spotlight

Having batted largely at no. 4 through the Australia series last year, Kusal Mendis is seemingly back for a long stint at first drop. In Galle he produced an innings that showcased why he is so highly rated by coaches, working his way through tough early spells, before opening his shoulders and setting the match up for Sri Lanka. He did, however, benefit from an early reprieve in that innings, and it is that looseness outside off stump that presently appears to be his greatest obstacle. On a Colombo track expected to be better for seam bowling than the previous pitch had been, Mendis may profit from a more discerning outlook at the start of his innings.His teammates keep throwing their wickets away, and there have been three last-day collapses in the last four Tests, but consistently providing the innings with a spine this year is Mushfiqur Rahim. So far he has two hundreds and a fifty in six innings in 2017. Among the times he didn’t reach a half-century was his defiance of New Zealand on day five in Wellington, where he was battered with bouncers, while he batted with an injured hand. If there is to be more substance from the Bangladesh top order in this Test, they could do worse than follow the example their captain has set.Bangladesh should look to exploit Sri Lanka’s batting weakness on a lively P Sara deck•AFP

Team news

Herath was tightlipped about Sri Lanka’s combination before this match, but there may be little reason to change the winning XI. There is a chance Dimuth Karunaratne’s is under pressure from Dhananjaya de Silva. It is also possible Sandakan is left out in favour of an extra batsman.Sri Lanka (possible): 1 Dimuth Karuanaratne, 2 Upul Tharanga, 3 Kusal Mendis, 4 Dinesh Chandimal, 5 Asela Gunaratne, 6 Niroshan Dickwella (wk), 7 Dilruwan Perera, 8 Rangana Herath (capt.), 9 Suranga Lakmal, 10 Lahiru Kumara, 11 Lakshan SandakanImrul and Sabbir are the likeliest batsmen to enter the XI, but there could also be a bowling change in the offing. Subashis Roy claimed only 1 for 137 in Galle, so it is possible Taijul Islam replaces him. Liton Das has been ruled out after suffering a fractured rib while batting in the nets on the eve of the game. That means Mushfiqur Rahim will take the gloves again.Bangladesh (possible): 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Soumya Sarkar, 3 Imrul Kayes, 4 Mosaddek Hossain, 5 Mushfiqur Rahim (capt & wk), 6 Shakib Al Hasan, 7 Sabbir Rahman, 8 Mehedi Hasan, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Mustafizur Rahman, 11 Kamrul Islam Rabbi/Rubel Hossain

Pitch and conditions

This track may be a little more batting friendly than the usual P Sara surfaces, but expect regular breakthroughs nonetheless. Daily pre-monsoon thunderstorms in Colombo may also make an appearance – evening sessions are particularly vulnerable.

Stats and trivia

  • Each of the last 14 Tests in Sri Lanka have yielded a result
  • Rangana Herath is three wickets shy of a first-class tally of 1000
  • Bangladesh’s three previous Tests at this venue have ended in innings defeats – their lowest Test total of 62 coming here in 2007
  • Mushfiqur has scored 441 runs at an average of 88.20 in 2017. He needs only 51 further runs to make this his most successful batting year.

'I'm the main person when it comes to judging how I feel' – Rabada

Kagiso Rabada has said he will always be honest about his fitness amid concerns over the workload the fast bowler is facing in the coming months.So far on the South Africa tour, he has played two matches and missed two, skipping the T20 and second ODI in Christchurch, but is expected to line up in Hamilton as South Africa aim to wrap up the series. Doing so would allow them to rest Rabada for the final match in Auckland ahead of the three-Test series, which begins on March 8 in Dunedin. That is followed by the IPL, the Champions Trophy and a full tour of England.A left knee niggle led to him sitting out the Christchurch match and he has bowled with it strapped during the tour. On his return in Wellington, he set the tone for South Africa with an immaculate new-ball spell and he insisted he is able to judge how his body is feeling.”I feel like I’m the main person when it comes to judging how I feel, and truthfully as well,” he said. “Sometimes you play with niggles, sometimes you feel fresh, sometimes niggles come and then they go away, sometimes they stay for a bit longer.”The longer that I’ve played the more I’ve learnt to manage myself, with the help of the medical team who give me advice, and I take it accordingly.”He added that he understood the reasoning behind rotating quick bowlers. “Sometimes you have to put your ego aside,” he said.After the match in Wellington, South Africa coach Russell Domingo admitted it was an ongoing challenge juggling the workload of all bowlers, not just Rabada.”A lot of our bowlers need to be managed because of the number of games that get played,” he said. “It’s a fine line between resting players and trying to win series. Particularly for a young player like KG. He’s only 21, Andile is only 20 so those are two young bowlers who need a lot of management.”But it’s hard to leave KG out of the next match, he’s a seriously good bowler and it’s no coincidence that when he’s back in the mix we look a different side. I’ll need to speak to the sport scientists, but we need to manage him carefully.”In words that will be pleasing for Domingo to hear Paddy Upton, the former performance director for South Africa who is now coach at Rabada’s IPL franchise Delhi Daredevils, has said he has no intention of running the paceman into the ground.”We try and help them not only to have a good IPL but to enhance and further their career,” he told South Africa’s . “The IPL is part of the 11-month season. We understand that.”There are teams who try and get every cent and every moment of every day out of the players. If players aren’t managed well and cognisance isn’t taken of the whole year you end up with a burnt out player at the end of an IPL. So it doesn’t serve anyone.”

Starlet Holden wins Northants loan deal

Max Holden, who will skipper England Under-19s on their impending tour of India, has been loaned by Middlesex to Northants for the first half of the 2017 season.Holden, a correct opening batsman who has yet to make a first XI debut for Middlesex, will take part in Northants’ pre-season tour of the Caribbean and remain with the Division Two club until the end of June when his loan spell expires.He already has good memories of Wantage Road, having struck a century on the ground for England U-19s against Sri Lanka last summer.”Ultimately I want to play as much cricket as I can,” he said. “Seeing Haseeb Hameed progress the way he has and break into the England team has really given me a push. Obviously the ambition is to play for the England Test eleven – that’s the dream.”Holden first caught the eye of Northamptonshire’s head coach, David Ripley, aged just 13: “I have followed his progress since I first tried to get him to join our Junior Academy back in 2011. I’m delighted to add him to the squad and add competition for places.”He will be available in both the Specsavers Championship and the Royal London One-Day Cup, although it is the four-day game where he can be most confident of playing time.Cambridgeshire born and raised, Holden began a four-year contract with Middlesex in 2016 after graduating from their Academy. He has established himself in the 2nd XI with Middlesex for the last two years despite continuing his education.Angus Fraser, Middlesex’s managing director of cricket, said: “At Middlesex CCC we are fortunate to have a number of exciting young cricketers, of which Max is one. These young players are desperate to play first XI cricket and at this moment in time at Middlesex there are batsmen ahead of Max.”We believe he is ready to get a taste of first XI cricket and are happy to loan him to a county that will, in the short term, provide him with a better chance of achieving this goal.”Holden will lead England Under-19s in two four-day matches next month. The one-day section of the tour begins at the Wankhede Stadium next Monday with England captained by Yorkshire’s Matthew Fisher.

Meshram left out of India squad for World Cup qualifiers

Allrounder Mona Meshram lost her spot in India’s 14-member squad for the upcoming Women’s World Cup Qualifier matches, which will be played in Colombo from February 3. She was the only player who missed out from the 15-member squad that played West Indies in November 2016, India’s previous ODI assignment. Sukanya Parida and Devika Vaidya, who made their debut in India’s last ODI, retained their place in the squad.

India squad for WC qualifiers

Mithali Raj (capt), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Thirush Kamini, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Shikha Pandey, Sukanya Parida, Poonam Yadav, Deepti Sharma, Devika Vaidya, Sushma Verma (wk)
Out: Mona Meshram

Meshram, who was out on 2 and didn’t bowl in the first ODI against West Indies, was overlooked for the next two matches. After making her debut in June 2012, she managed to score 47 runs in the eight ODIs she played in, with a top score of 22 and a solitary wicket to her name.India, who blanked West Indies 3-0, are in the middle of a seven-match unbeaten streak that started from the last ODI against Australia in Hobart. Since then, they beat Sri Lanka 3-0 at home before completing a whitewashing of the touring West Indies team.India start their qualification campaign with a practice match against South Africa on February 5 before their first game of the tournament against Sri Lanka on February 7. The tournament also includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Scotland, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. The top four teams qualify for the Women’s World Cup, joining Australia, England, New Zealand and West Indies who automatically qualified through the ICC Women’s Championship. World Cup 2017 will be held from 26 June to 23 July in England.

Khulna go on top with Shafiul four-for

Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsMahmudullah’s 44 off 26 balls set up a respectable total for Khulna Titans•Raton Gomes/BCB

Khulna Titans climbed to the top of the BPL points table after a 22-run win over Barisal Bulls. As was the case in their four previous wins, it was their bowlers who made their moderate total look very competitive.Shafiul Islam led the five-man bowling attack to defend their 151 runs comfortably. The paceman took four wickets while Junaid Khan and Mosharraf Hossain took two each as Barisal capitulated for 129 in 19.3 overs.Barisal’s chase was always going to be interesting as they had a batting line-up to compete with Khulna’s discipline. Jeevan Mendis, promoted to open the innings, struck four fours on his way to 21 before falling to Shafiul in the fourth over. His opening partner Fazle Mahmud was earlier trapped lbw for a duck in the second over.After Shamsur Rahman was caught at long-on cheaply, Barisal’s main batsmen Shahriar Nafees and Mushfiqur Rahim added 43 runs for the fourth wicket. Nafees batted at a slower pace, hitting two fours in his 28 off 35 balls. Mushfiqur held the chase together till the 16th over before he top-edged a pull after making 35 off 23 balls with four fours. Thisara Perera’s failure with the bat made it harder for Barisal who folded in the last four overs of their chase.After they had decided to bowl, Barisal were given early breakthroughs by Taijul Islam who struck twice in the fifth over to remove the Khulna openers Hasanuzzaman and Andre Fletcher. Both batsmen holed out to Abu Hider at long-on.Mahmudullah ensured that they recovered from an ordinary Powerplay, adding 53 for the third wicket with Riki Wessels. He slammed three sixes through long-on and two fours in his 26-ball 44, before becoming Taijul’s third victim, caught at point. Next ball, Shuvagata Hom was run-out after a mix-up with Wessels with both batsmen ending at the non-striker’s end.Wessels, who had contributed just five runs to the third-wicket stand, found a higher gear as he struck four fours and a six over long-on in his 29-ball 40. Like Mahmudullah, Wessels’ wicket also hurt Khulna, who added 39 runs in the last five overs.

NSW lose seven in nervy chase of 96


ScorecardA career-best match haul from Ashton Agar was not enough to save Western Australia from defeat at the SCG, where New South Wales wobbled but reached their target of 96 with seven wickets down. The Blues started the morning at 0 for 3, but on a dry pitch offering plenty for the spinners, they lost enough wickets throughout the day to send some jitters through the camp before the task was completed.They did not lose their first wicket until the total had reached 36, when opener-nightwatchman William Somerville was run out for 23, but his opening partner Daniel Hughes fell to Agar for 13 just three balls later. Ed Cowan made 25 and Kurtis Patterson scored 13, but no other batsman reached double figures as Agar and his bowling colleagues gave the Warriors a sniff.However, in the end New South Wales did enough to secure their second win of the season, despite Agar’s 4 for 31. He finished with match figures of 10 for 141, the second ten-wicket haul of his first-class career, and it completed a match that was dominated by the spinners, with Somerville having taken nine for New South Wales and Steve O’Keefe eight.

Dhoni rues lack of big partnerships in defeat

India captain MS Dhoni blamed the absence of big partnerships for his team’s six-run defeat to New Zealand on a Feroz Shah Kotla pitch that was slow and had variable bounce.After New Zealand had made 242, India stitched together sizeable partnerships in their chase but lost clumps of wickets on two occasions. First, Ajinkya Rahane and Manish Pandey departed in the space of four balls in the 19th over, and then Dhoni, Axar Patel and Amit Mishra fell in a nine-ball span during overs 40 and 41, with Martin Guptill accounting for the last two of those dismissals in his only over of the match.”If you see there were quite a few partnerships, but we kept losing wickets after every partnership,” Dhoni said. “When you are chasing a score like this it is important that you need to keep a few wickets because the runs were coming. Even if you need six or seven runs an over in the end it can easily be achieved but our problem was that we kept losing the wickets. In fact in the 41st over we lost two wickets.”It’s not about one batsman, I felt we lost wickets throughout. Any batsman could have said that had I contributed 10 percent more we would have won the game. So it was the responsibility of the whole batting unit. I felt the bowlers did well.”Dhoni said the pitch continued to slow down despite the dew, which generally ensured the ball came on to the bat better. “I felt it was best to bat in the day time as the game kept progressing the wicket got slightly slower and slower with a bit of variable bounce,” he said. “Also, if you lose one or two wickets that slows you down to an extent. Then, if you have that partnership and still lose a wicket again, again you have to start from scratch.”He defended the decision to bowl first and said 242 was a par score on the pitch. “If any of our batsman had batted 15 minutes more we would have won the game,” he said. “The bowlers did well to come back into the game. Initially it was difficult to contain their batsmen and they played some proper shots, not to forget we dropped two catches off [Kane] Williamson. That also has a bit of a bearing. Overall I was happy with 240-245, because that was very much something we could have achieved.”Dhoni also lauded Jasprit Bumrah’s ability to bowl inch-perfect yorkers, and said his consistency made him his go-to man, particularly at the death. After a tight spell up front, Bumrah returned to clean up New Zealand’s lower order with yorkers and slower deliveries and finished with figures of 3 for 35.”Right from the time he began his international career he has always been someone who can bowl yorkers at will, and that’s why he has been someone I can always bank upon,” Dhoni said. “A lot of times I had to see how every bowler is bowling and then decide who will bowl the last few but with Bumrah be it any condition or situation he has always been someone who gives me those last few overs. He practices that way, he has an awkward action. Still credit to him for consistently bowling those yorkers.”